Kenji Nakayama
Kenji Nakayama was born in Tomokomai on the island of Hokkaido, Japan in 1979. A mechanical engineer by education, Nakayama made a significant life change in 2004 with a move to Boston, Massachusetts to study traditional sign painting and to dedicate his time and energy to art-making. Nakayama's diverse practice ranges from careful pinstriping and gilded lettering to multi-layered stencil paintings; and from abstract representations of Buddhist traditional beliefs to constructions of words and letters stripped down to their essential physical forms. Meditation and highly-trained craftsmanship are hallmarks of Nakayama's work, which has been shown internationally and acquired by the collection of the Milwaukee Art Museum and the Four Seasons Restaurant in New York.
Nakayama was last featured in a solo exhibition, Riff, on view at 13FOREST Gallery in the fall of 2019. In addition to his fine art practice, Nakayama also maintains a professional sign painting business, Need Signs Will Paint, established in 2017.
